Transcript Analysis with CLAN

This repository contains all the code and protocols to enable you to generate transcripts that follow CHAT guidelines and can be analysed by CLAN.

Why CLAN?

For more information about CLAN, go to: https://childes.talkbank.org/

As described in the CLAN manual ¹...

If you are a researcher studying conversational interaction, language learning, or language disorders, you will want to learn to use CLAN because it will help you address basic research questions and explore many different language types. ... CLAN emphasizes the automatic computation of indices such as MLU, TTR, DSS, and IPSyn. It also provides powerful methods for speeding transcription, linking transcripts to media, sending data to automatic acoustic analysis, and automatic computation of a wide range of morphosyntactic features.

It is recommended you consult the CLAN manuals for a deeper understanding of the software and to see if it is relevant for your research project.

Converting existing transcripts for analysis in CLAN

Below are the protocols for converting existing text file transcripts to follow CHAT guidelines so that they can be analysed by CLAN.

Step 1: A protocol for converting an existing transcript text file into a chat file that follows basic CHAT guidelines.

Step 2: A protocol for checking CHAT files for remaining errors.

Step 3: A protocol for executing the MOR command in CLAN.

Additional Material

• This is a list of common errors found when converting to CHAT files.

The Project Team

Project Lead: Sophie von Stumm

Research associate: Anna Brown

Project Coordinator: Emily Wood

https://www.hungrymindlab.com/

Footnotes

1. MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. 3rd Edition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ↩